Visual Motion Perception
What is the motion aftereffect?
The illusion where stationary objects appear to move after staring at motion in one direction for a while, such as after looking at a waterfall.
What is apparent motion?
Motion perception created by rapidly presenting slightly different still images in sequence, used in movies and animation.
What is auditory localization?
The ability to determine where a sound is coming from in the environment.
What is the pinna?
The folds of this outer ear structure modify sound frequencies and provide cues for determining sound elevation.
What is pitch?
The perceptual attribute of sound that corresponds to the frequency of a tone.
What are motion-sensitive (or direction-selective) neurons?
Specialized neurons in the visual system that respond selectively to motion in a particular direction.
What is corollary discharge theory?
This theory explains how the brain distinguishes between motion caused by objects and motion caused by our own eye movements.
What is sound intensity (loudness) as a distance cue?
One cue for determining how far away a sound source is based on the reduction of sound energy as distance increases.
What is timbre?
This term refers to the characteristic that allows us to distinguish two sounds with the same pitch and loudness but from different sources.
What is the McGurk effect?
The illusion where seeing a speaker’s lip movements influences what speech sound we hear.
What is the corollary discharge signal (or efference copy)?
According to corollary discharge theory, this internal signal informs the brain that the eyes are moving.
What is perceptual organization through motion?
This concept describes how motion cues help the visual system organize objects and separate them from the background.
What is auditory scene analysis?
The process by which the auditory system organizes sound into perceptually meaningful elements or “streams.”
What term describes the pattern of reflected sounds that helps us perceive the acoustic properties of a room or environment?
Reverberation
What is a phoneme?
The basic unit of speech sound that distinguishes meaning in language, such as /b/ versus /p/.
Name the pattern of apparent motion across the visual scene that helps us perceive our own movement through the environment.
Optic flow
Which brain area is specialized for processing visual motion and, when damaged, can impair motion perception?
Area MT (also called V5)
Which auditory localization effect causes listeners to perceive sound from the first arriving signal when multiple similar sounds occur close together in time?
The precedence effect
Which auditory distance cue relies on the ratio between reflected sound and direct sound?
Reverberation
What is top-down processing in speech perception?
A cognitive factor in speech perception where prior knowledge, expectations, and context influence what we hear.
What is perceptual plasticity?
Evidence that motion perception can change with experience, injury, or adaptation demonstrates this characteristic of perceptual systems.
Which type of motion perception relies on changes in luminance to detect movement?
First-order motion
In sound perception, what are the terms for the way a sound builds up at the start and fades at the end?
Attack and decay
Name the effect where sound appears to come from a visible source—such as a puppet—rather than the actual speaker.
The ventriloquist effect
Which brain area is associated with speech production and, when damaged, can cause nonfluent aphasia?
Broca’s area